A Wall Divides a Connecticut Town

Since its look final fall, a grey mass on one of many major routes to the compact downtown of New Canaan, Conn., has generated a flurry of offended on-line feedback, emails to city officers, and even a petition on the positioning change.org.

A “tasteless eyesore,” one resident, James Buckner, complained in a letter to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

“Hideous,” wrote one other, Mimi Findlay.

“An abomination within the coronary heart of our village,” wrote Todd Bruno in a letter to a neighborhood newspaper.

It’s solely a wall, however this slab of concrete has captured much more consideration than its builder ever anticipated, or wished. Perhaps it has struck such a collective nerve as a result of partitions are a very delicate topic today, given the nationwide dialog. Or maybe it’s the wall’s affiliation with “fakeness,” one other sore level for our instances. Or perhaps, as its detractors argue, it’s simply actually that ugly.

Stretching for a number of hundred ft alongside Park Street, the wall (technically two partitions — one alongside the sidewalk, with an equivalent one terraced above it) marks the start of building on a 109-unit residential improvement on a three-acre web site a brief stroll from the center of downtown.

Called Merritt Village, the event will consist of 4 buildings with 59 rental residences beginning at about $three,500 a month and 50 condominiums beginning at round $1.2 million, in line with the builder, Arnold Karp, the president of Karp Associates, primarily based in New Canaan, and a creating accomplice within the challenge.

Artist renderings selling the event on-line seem to point out a stacked stone wall alongside the Park Street perimeter. But the precise construction, which capabilities as a retaining wall, is concrete. Its face is textured to seem like it’s constructed of particular person items, an impact created by a mildew when the concrete was poured. It is that this manufactured “faux-stone” look, because the planning fee chairman has referred to as it, that particularly irritates critics. In an prosperous neighborhood that prides itself on appearances, a distinguished faux-stone wall seems obviously out of context to some residents.

“It’s a humiliation to New Canaan, which has lovely fieldstone partitions throughout city,” mentioned Alan Goldberg, an architect who has lived there for many years. “There are patterns that repeat each eight ft or so. And it’s all uniform in shade. It ought to by no means have occurred.”

Constance MacDougall, in an e-mail to the Planning and Zoning Commission, referred to as it an “insult” to the city’s colonial custom, “a mind-numbing monochromatic grey cartoon of a wall devoid of any visible ingredient that may give it a measure of compatibility to the panorama on which it sits.”

Robert Thorson, a professor of geology on the University of Connecticut and coordinator of the Stone Wall Initiative, which raises consciousness about New England’s historic stone partitions, may be very aware of such partitions within the space, having led tour teams across the grounds of Philip Johnson’s Glass House, a nationwide belief historic web site in New Canaan, to discover the numerous mixture of stonework there.

“New Canaan has pretty partitions,” he mentioned. “It’s a wealthier place than many in New England however the primary backdrop is similar: individuals dwelling on roads that was farms,” and lined with leftover fieldstone boundary partitions or stone partitions rebuilt in a extra upscale vogue.

Those stone partitions “are promoting what the land is fabricated from,” serving to to create a way of place, Mr. Thorson mentioned. “The key situation,” he mentioned of the brand new construction, “is the place’s the authenticity to our panorama?”

Fieldstone partitions are a standard sight round New Canaan, which is why many residents discover the “faux-stone” wall distasteful. CreditJane Beiles for The New York Times

Mr. Karp identified that there’s one other faux-stone wall throughout from a espresso store and a deli downtown that doesn’t appear to trouble individuals. He additionally argued that opponents have been too fast to guage, provided that building has solely simply begun, and that his most vocal critics have been against the high-density improvement from the beginning.

“I’ve pushed by a whole lot of these peoples’ houses,” he mentioned. “How do I say it? I don’t suppose they’re the arbiters of design in New Canaan.”

The resident who began the petition to cease the wall, Jack Trifero, has additionally objected to the dimensions of the residential challenge, and is amongst a handful of residents who proceed to query the approval course of. He and a others additionally declare that the plan doesn’t adequately shield an adjoining burial floor, an argument that at one level led to his arrest, together with one other resident, for trespassing on the positioning. (The expenses have been later dropped.)

The Planning and Zoning Commission has additionally instructed that the wall just isn’t what its members anticipated. In a letter to Mr. Karp final November, the fee’s chairman, John Goodwin, requested that a fieldstone veneer be placed on the face of the wall, which he mentioned is at the moment not in maintaining “with the drawings that you just initially offered as a part of your software.”

Mr. Karp refused, noting that nothing within the 65 circumstances of approval set by the fee talked about stone for the retaining partitions. Adding a veneer now would price at the very least an extra $250,000, he mentioned.

After extra discussions with fee members and the city planner, Mr. Karp has given some floor, nevertheless. In late February, he offered a “extra strong” landscaping plan for the wall, to start this spring, with plantings hanging excessive portion, ivies rising up the decrease portion, and mature bushes planted on the terraced portion between them.

While he nonetheless believes the controversy has been overblown, his intention now, he mentioned, is to “put the matter behind us.”

“I don’t get to critique all people else’s residence in New Canaan,” Mr. Karp mentioned. “I don’t perceive why all people will get to critique my challenge.”

Not everyone seems to be. Dave Prutting, a customized homebuilder, lives immediately throughout the road from the wall, however he’s not upset about it. He opposed the concept of including a stone veneer, which he mentioned wouldn’t essentially enhance the wall’s look, as veneers, too, are a matter of style. And he’s optimistic that skilled landscaping would possibly neutralize the presence of the concrete and “salvage the aesthetics.”

In the meantime, he’s made peace together with his concrete neighbor.

“Do I really like the wall? No,” Mr. Prutting mentioned. “But I can settle for the wall.”